Everyone for joining us this morning. Pleasure to have with us QuidelOrtho this morning. We have CEO Doug Bryant and we have CFO Joe Busky with us this morning. I'm Vijay Kumar. I cover life science diagnostics and med tech at Evercore. Doug and Joe, thanks for spending the time with us this morning.
You're welcome. Good to be here.
Fantastic. I, you know, maybe, and I want to start high level for you guys. You know, you, when you did the transaction, it, this was a pretty transformational deal. You know, two years, post-deal, sort of your thoughts, big picture on, on has the thesis played out? Just give us some high level on, the deal itself and how it's progressed.
Sure. Well, the premise... Something I said? Someone pulled the fire alarm. Well, remember, the premise for the deal was that both companies have a pretty big desire to be a bigger presence in the molecular space. There's a lot of reasons for that. We can talk about the importance of molecular, but we have been working on an analyzer for some time. The Ortho team, at the same time, had been looking at what could they do to actually improve their offerings, create a better bundle in a space that made the most sense. So that was the impetus for the initial discussion. To be completely transparent, we started off, at least I thought we were starting off more, looking at a distribution sort of arrangement.
But as we started to do the math and how much it would cost and how dilutive it would be, et cetera, to have a distributor, it became clear that the two companies probably would be both better off if we put the two companies together. And at the time, it looked like we were going to do an MOE because the market caps of both companies was about the same. And then we had a bit of a run-up on the Quidel side, which changed the math a bit, and so that's how we ended up being... Yes.
Everyone calm? I wanna make sure.
I feel pretty calm. Yeah, so far. So the premise was that we would put the two companies together, and we would launch Savanna. And we thought that the Ortho commercial organization was large and talented, and I loved the way that they improved their growth rate by large.
Fantastic. We're back on track now.
So I spent some time understanding their go-to-market strategy, and I learned how they went about going from a 1% grower in the labs business to a mid-single digit. And it was through very specific targeting and sending the commercial organization into the places where we know that we can compete, where we would be, you know, within the top three players in the space. And they certainly did that, and I thought that that sort of commercial execution would be great for us globally. And we also thought that we would see other cross-selling opportunities, whether it's with Sofia or Triage. And we've seen that so far, and we wait to see how we will do with Savanna and whether my theory proves out.
But I'm pretty confident that, I've got a commercial organization now that can execute, and so we should do reasonably well. So I'll wait for other questions regarding that, but,
No, that's helpful in big picture thoughts, Doug. But just some of the targets that you laid out, I think of revenue and cost synergies. Obviously, with the pandemic, a lot of things changed, but anything on the deal integration side and how things have progressed and...
Yeah, we're actually still working through integration. I think it's going pretty swiftly. We broke it into three parts. The first part I called harmonization, where you put the two companies together, put the right people in the right spots. You know, we keep the people that we really wanna keep, and I think that's gone pretty well. We've eliminated, you know, the obvious duplicative costs, and we had forecasted that we would I think do $30 million a year for three years in terms of that sort of cost reduction. We still are integrating. We're doing a lot of things with benefits and a number of things that affect our people. You know, those things have to be completed.
In that second phase, we've also found areas where we could reduce headcount, and we've been in the process of doing that. We should see some of that, most of that, impact in 2024. I would say at this stage, Joe's a little bit more conservative than I, so you correct me if I'm being too exuberant here. But we're doing a lot better in terms of the cost synergy than we had suggested that we would. And then we've just now entered into a third phase, where we're using a third party to help us look at cost reduction and revenue improvement across six work streams.
And we should be able to communicate a range of impact, you know, probably January, mid-January, February, as to what we think we can achieve between now and the end of 2025. So the intent, obviously, is to do better in a number of categories. We certainly think we can do better in procurement, as an example, and there are a number of commercial initiatives as well. And so we're sizing all that. We have a number of ideas. We've built business cases for each of those ideas. And now we're in the stage where we're going to prioritize what those activities are.
In a nutshell, I would say we think there's a pretty big opportunity to run this business better, and it's not necessarily one side. We call it QuidelOrtho West or East. It's across both organizations combined.
Fantastic. And sorry, just on this third phase, is that new, Doug, or are just the targets going to be announced in January?
We've been working on this since summer, and we had a third party do an independent due diligence, comparing where we're at relative to others in our space. Then we've gone through the process, an ideation phase, where we had our own teams look at what they thought could be done in those categories. Again, we built business cases for each of those, and we haven't sized it precisely. If we would, I could give you a range today, but I would rather have a number that we firmly believe in, that we have conviction around. You know, I would suggest that we probably will communicate something in that regard during our next Analyst Day.
That's, that's-
Which is when?
March.
March. In March. Yeah.
That's extremely helpful, Doug. You know, talking about Analyst Day, I think, I think at your last Analyst Day, you'd given a certain target, you know, I think mid to high singles on, on top line for base business ex-COVID. But I, I know that, like, the reporting chain right now, you're- we're looking at respiratory versus non-respiratory. Maybe just, talk about those targets, and are they still relevant, or should we be thinking about respiratory versus non-respiratory?
I do think that those targets are still valid. Right now, in addition to moving through this integration that we talked about, you know, we're focused on near-term growth drivers. And so there could be some ups and downs. How many boxes do we place at Savanna? You know, how big is the respiratory season? These could have an effect, and there are many moving pieces at the moment, so it's really hard to forecast very accurately. But, you know, we're looking at menu expansion, you know, providing our customers more products for their QuidelOrtho platforms. Obviously, we're looking at new platforms, Savanna is one. We have another project called Leapfrog, which I don't talk a whole lot about, but that's another platform that probably will be a little bit later.
Targeted efforts to gain revenue with existing products. We do think there's an opportunity for Triage globally, and in particular, I think clinicians will over time move to screening patients for BNP. That would change things for us. And of course, with high-sensitivity troponin, we still haven't gotten past the FDA. The same with HbA1c. And then again, this third phase of integration, those are the things that are likely to have an impact in 2024 and 2025.
Yeah, that's extremely helpful, Doug. And you know, these assays that you mentioned, troponin, high-sensitivity troponin, have they been submitted to the FDA or any timeline or?
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
How do we have any historical analogies on how long the FDA takes to approve them? Any way to size those opportunities?
... I think our best forecast for timing would be the end of 2024.
Gotcha. You brought up Savanna a couple of times. Maybe just talk about what's happened with Savanna. Looks like there was some timing push out.
Yeah, let's be completely open. We submitted to the FDA in July, and we completed the clinical trial during the summer. There was a lot of to and fro, and we've been in communication constantly with the FDA. The one issue which we've agreed was that we needed to run some samples during respiratory season. And the FDA's concern wasn't the performance of the product, it was they wanna see how the instrument and cartridge performs with respiratory season samples, which I don't know. But this may not be the best way to describe it, but some samples are snotty-
Yeah
... viscous, and they wanna see how we did there. So we are wrapping that up, which is the last phase. But we've also submitted HSV/VZV, and I'm highly confident that we will get the box approved before the end of the year. And then it'll either have one or both assays cleared, and I'm certainly hopeful that we get the respiratory product cleared in time to have some impact in the first quarter.
Gotcha. Longer term, I know, you know, what is the Savanna thesis? What should we expect from Savanna?
Well, we like the idea of the small syndromic panel. You know, when you think about, you've got competitors that have very large panels, and you have competitors that have just one or two assays. I think the smaller syndromic panel of four-five analytes, and I think the largest panel we have, that we have, it has 11. But those needs that exist out there, we think can be addressed with something that's faster and simpler, easier to run, and frankly, just more modern, will be super competitive, and that's what our marketing data says. We do have customers in Europe. We do have IUO customers in the U.S., and the feedback at this point has been encouraging.
So we think we'll do about 1,000 instruments. That's the forecast. I always say to the marketing people that you know models are rarely right, but it's at least useful to have something that you think you are aiming at, and I think that's about an appropriate target for us in 2024.
Yes, indeed. We can agree on that. I look at my model every day, and I can see that it's rarely to the dock, but you know, things keep moving. You know, you did bring up the commercial execution using Ortho Clinical Team. Is that how you came up with a 1,000 instrument set, or how are we gonna leverage that commercial team?
Oh, it's not a top-down forecast. It's a bottom-up by customer name. But 1,000 is not a big number when you think about it.
And how should we think about the revenue opportunity for Savanna?
In terms of?
Post-launch, you know, once you have these panels launched.
Yeah. Well, in terms of number of instruments, I think that what we said at Analyst Day was somewhere around 6,000 in that three-year window. So again, sort of a bottoms up at this point. And I've also said to people, and maybe you'll think this fu- it's funny, maybe you won't, but, it's not the right number. It's either gonna be a lot less or a lot more. Yeah.
Yeah.
If it is successful in the way that we think, then the forecast is too conservative.
Is there, like, a certain consumable pull-through per system that we should be thinking about or...?
Yeah, I think the target was around $35,000 per box. Am I, am I in the right range?
Yeah, in a full ramp-up mode.
Yeah, yeah.
Three years-
Once we have the-
Yeah.
Once we have the panels.
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah.
Gotcha. And, Joe, maybe some near-term questions for you. I think rather than that Analyst Day target, 6%-9% year-to-date, I think because you've broken up respiratory, non-respiratory. Your non-respiratory, I think, has been running around four-ish year-to-date. Like, was there anything one-off? Like, why is the business track below the 6%-9% target?
Donor screening.
Yeah, the Labs business is performing as... or actually greater than expected. And Vijay, you know that we've always had talked about at Ortho, the Labs business being a mid-single-digit grower. This year, we're gonna be a high-single-digit grower of the Labs business. And so the Donor Screening, as Doug just said, is what's pulling it down. And there's macro issues related to blood donations there, and then there's also some comp issues related to prior year customer net customer wins. It's so it's really Donor Screening that's pulling that percentage down.
... And so this is not any share loss issue or anything of that sort? Is that a fair characterization?
Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah.
Gotcha. Some of the margin targets that you'd laid out, you know, at your analyst day, right? I think annual expansion, 25-50 basis points, with EBITDA margins of 27%-29% exiting 2023. I know a lot has changed since then, since the announcement. What is the right base we should be thinking about, margin trade, ex-COVID, and what should be, like, the normal margin expansion cadence?
Well, Vijay, there's no change in the guidance that we provided at that Analyst Day a year ago. We're still in that 27%-29% range, and as you know, there's some variables that are gonna impact the timing of when we get to that 27%-29%. The biggest of which is gonna be the slope and the pace of the Savanna launch, and how dilutive those margins are during the launch, and when we get the high volume line up and running, which will make the margins accretive. You've also got the timing of the achievement of synergies that'll impact that achievement of that target margin, and then you've got the level of endemic COVID and where you end up in that range of 200-400.
Yeah, and specifically, just to add a little bit more color, the margin. Well, the cartridges are being manufactured on two manual lines, and frankly speaking, the cost is too high. So the cost will be too high until we get the automated line validated in the middle of the year.
Okay.
After that, it should improve.
Correct.
Gotcha. That's helpful, Doug. You know, on the earnings call, I think there were a lot of questions around the sequential margin ramp for Q4, and you sounded pretty confident about hitting those numbers. Maybe just given I'm not super close, maybe explain, like, why was there a question about the sequential margin ramp, and why is QuidelOrtho confident about the Q4 assumptions around margins?
Well, it's tied to respiratory. Respiratory products are significantly more profitable than the rest of the business, and in particular, if we see a flu uptick, and we have evidence of that already, then we would expect to see more flu/COVID combo, and that's our highest margin product. So to the extent that the season is normal and our distribution partners reorder before the end of December, we will be fine. There's always the risk, as there has been since I've been in this company, that instead of the last three weeks of December, the really big distribution partners like McKesson and Henry Schein and Medline and Cardinal and then Fisher.
Those folks, if they don't order the last three, we've seen it slip into the first two weeks of January, so it is that, this kind of an awkward period of time. But typically, what happens is these guys order in Q3, which they did, and then we watch their out sales 'cause they report to us every week. And we watch their inventories bleed down, that rate of bleed is helpful in forecasting a little bit, but we don't know for sure when they're gonna reorder. But if it's normal, they will reorder before the end of December, and that's what we have in the forecast, is normal. So there's nothing spectacular.
Understood. And just on the respiratory season, Doug, so far, it just at least when we look at the CDC data, year on year, we're still, like, I think, below last year, but it's spiking up.
Well, last year was early, as you know, but you are over the... I think we're at, what are we? ILI is what, 2-
2.5.
2.5?
Yeah.
27, something like that.
Yes.
Which historically, the CDC has said is endemic. But we also have real-time data that we collect from our Sofia analyzers, and so we see numbers of tests, we see prevalence. And what I would say is what's going on in Florida, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, for some reason, is even higher than those states would tell you that we've begun the respiratory season. And so it's looking pretty typical. Last year was a little bit more than typical at this stage.
Understood. That, that's helpful comments, Doug. I think, you know, a lot of us are actually one high-level question. A lot of your peers look at base business ex-COVID, and you guys took the path of guiding to respiratory versus non-respiratory. What was the thought process behind, you know, clubbing COVID along with respiratory revenues and breaking it out?
Look, we group it respiratory because they're linked, and you would not. So if you take ranges for COVID, and we've said $200 million-$400 million, and you take a range for flu, we've called it $230 million-$270 million. So we're a little bit tighter there. And you look at RSV and the other, and strep, and you look at those ranges, you can't go to the mid across all of them. You can't go to the high across or the low across all of them. It's what we've seen is, in years when in the fourth quarter we saw a lot of COVID, it seemed to have crowded out flu, you know?
So I think it's fair to say that we have a number of respiratory viruses that we're likely to see every year, and within that, you'll see certain prevalences. We saw an uptick in COVID that was short-lived here a few months ago, right? So I think for us, it's just easier to say it's respiratory, right? And if I see an uptick here, I'm likely to see something lower over here. And so it's easier, I think, to get your head around the idea that it's probably a total overall picture of respiratory season.
Yeah, and the margins are no different either. When you think about a COVID test versus a, a flu test, the margins are in that same range. And so for us, it just seems a bit unnatural to talk about things in an ex-COVID way. I know a lot of the street likes to talk about ex-COVID, but we're, we're clearly in a transition mode, 'cause last year at the analyst day, we talked about ex-COVID revenue targets, and now we're shifting to this respiratory, non-respiratory, and so we're, we're sort of in that transition phase.
That, that's helpful explanation, because I always wondered why respiratory versus non-respiratory.
Yeah.
It makes a whole lot of sense when you look at the ranges.
With the labs being what it is, pretty steady, slower growing, but dependable. And then on our side, although we have really big market share in the space, you know, we're sitting here waiting to see if our distributors order at the last of the year, right?
Yeah.
So we try to think about it a little bit differently, 'cause it will affect our EBITDA in a quarter.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. And typically, these distributors order in the last few weeks of December, correct?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
The inventory bleed down patterns, what you're seeing is a fact?
Yeah, we're seeing our sales. We're seeing our sales. So, physicians are ordering product. I do know physicians personally as well, and they're telling me that they're ordering. They've been running a combo on their patients, particularly pediatricians right now.
Gotcha. And those would all support, you know, perhaps this should be like a normal ordering pattern, but that's, that's nice, whether it's one week on this side or that side, but it is, it is a normal season.
I think it's normal. Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't see it being high either. I don't think it's gonna be,
The other-
... It's not gonna be a huge, you know, 2009 season or whatever.
Yeah, the other data point, Vijay, is that the Southern Hemisphere had a stronger than average flu season. Not, I know it's not a perfect R squared, but it is, it's another data point that supports what we're saying here, is that we think it's gonna be a normal, typical respiratory season.
Over the last 25 years, the R squared is 0.76.
0.76. That's a very specific number, that 0.76.
We've looked at it a few times.
It's better than 50/50 ... right? Better than a coin toss, but it's not necessarily predictive.
Fantastic. And given, you know, how you broke up revs, are we at an endemic state here? And whatever COVID assumptions we had or respiratory assumptions we had, if you will, for 2023, is that now like the new baseline and the business should grow off, or is there still some sensitivities?
Well, I don't know about sensitivities. I would say our 200-400, we still think is the right number. I think for 2024, we probably will be higher than the midpoint for COVID still. I just had COVID again. I've tested negative, don't worry. And I think you probably, in the room, probably all know somebody who's recently had COVID, so it's still around.
Yeah.
The symptoms for me this second time I've now had it were different than the first time around. This time, you know, I had a severe headache, I had a little bit of nasal congestion, but I never had a cough, never had a fever. It just felt like a massive sinus headache for a few days and, you know, trouble thinking. So it's the virus is definitely mutating, and it's different.
Yeah, well, I'm glad you're-
Based on my one personal experiment.
N of one. Fantastic. I, I think, the other thing that came up, for you guys on third quarter was, China VBP. Most of your peers seem to suggest, like, it's, it's pretty manageable. How are you guys sizing it?
Well, I wish we had to worry about it. Because what would be the situation where I was worried about is, if I had large immunoassay sales in China, and sadly, we don't. So, yeah, maybe someday I'll be worried about it. But right now, we have a chemistry system that's not in the big hospital lab. It's more in the EDs. It's a different technology, film-based technology, that we haven't even been asked to participate on the clinical chemistry side so far. And I think that's mainly because the multinationals all use a similar technology that the Chinese companies do. And again, it's in a different market segment.
Understood. So it's marginal for quite a lot, though?
Yeah, I would say there's always some level of risk, Vijay. But as we look at what's happening and the investment by the Chinese government in Class III hospitals and our opportunity, our box fits really nicely in a situation where those labs are doing four million clinical chemistry tests per year or fewer. We're perfectly set up: no water, no electricity requirements, special electricity requirements. I think we're poised nicely to take advantage of that investment by the Chinese government, so we'll see. But I think our opportunities far outweigh our risks. So I would say, relative to my colleagues, I'm obviously more bullish on China and our business there.
Fantastic. I think, related to-- you did bring up Dry Slide. I think that's what you were referring to-
Yes
-water.
Mm-hmm.
I know that tech was supposed to transition to immunoassays. Like, do we have that transition? Has the transition been done?
Are you, are you referring to the program, that used to be called Dry Dry or?
Correct, Dry Dry.
Internally, I think they called it Bam Bam. So, we've transitioned to a technology that we think is more appropriate and will be able to deliver faster. And we're calling... The program now is called Next-Gen Immunoassay, and we do have money budgeted for it in 2024 and beyond, and... But I don't think we're going to see anything, certainly in that 2024-2025 timeframe. Well, I know for a fact we're not going to see anything that quickly.
Understood. Instrumentation sales were up very strongly for you guys. I think you mentioned lab placements up 19%. What drove that? Is that like share gains or-
Yeah. That's a good catch, Vijay, but I think you're referring to the integrated platforms.
Yes.
So the integrated platforms are up 19%. Integrating, meaning I have clinical chemistry and immunoassay. That's a specific targeted program, and the placements in the U.S. have, have done, the integrated platform have done extremely well. Similar situation moving forward, we hope in China, but in Europe and in particular, Latin America, we're seeing pretty nice uptick in integrated placements. That's important to us because the immunoassay side, those products are at higher margins than the clinical chemistry. And so that's one of the ways that we're planning on improving the profitability of that business. It's also how we're growing when the overall clinical chemistry market's probably growing 3%-5%, and we're growing, you know, mid-single digits. And—but with the integrated platform, obviously, we're growing even faster.
Joe, I think you guys used to disclose in the past total installed base. So I think mid-singles, is that still intact?
Yeah. Yeah, the integrated base has been growing for the last couple of years in the teens, mid-teens. So the 19% is not that atypical for us, and the overall base is still growing in the low single digits. Yeah.
Gotcha.
You saw a little bit of acceleration in placement rates, but that's simply because we improved our ability to manufacture the instrument. So we had a pretty big backlog, about 650 analyzers, customers waiting for the installation. And then we've whittled that way down now. So as we exit this year, we're probably down around 150 or so.
Yeah, we're back down to our normalized level now. Yeah.
Okay. So I think the commercial guys should take their forecast up on the reagent side. Just FYI. Well, I mean, how can you install boxes and not see an uptick on your reagent side? That's what I want to know, right?
So that's,
Where, where's our commercials? We'll pass that on.
Doug, I did want to bring up transfusion medicine. You cited some blood donation, but, you know, when I look at some of your peers within that market, I mean, they've grown like high singles, doubles. Do you guys play in a slightly different part of the market, or just explain what's happening?
We do. So our customers are typically those running tests for red blood cells. You're probably referring to my former company.
Yes.
They do extremely well on the plasma side, and the plasma side is growing. So-
That's helpful.
So that's basically it. Because donations are not increasing on the red blood cell, and frankly, the demand for that is declining in the United States and probably will look more like it does in Europe at some stage, where you know, not as many units are transfused on a typical surgery.
Gotcha. Gotcha. You know, when I think about pricing, you know, generally across the industry, pricing, I think, has improved given the inflation trends. Talk about pricing versus inflation trends in your book of business. How is pricing trending?
We don't have, because of the length of these contracts, particularly on the lab side, we don't really have the ability to immediately raise price, you know. So we're raising price opportunistically, but it's not enough to offset inflation. The way that we're offsetting inflation, of course, is the cost synergies that we're harvesting. So we have a little bit of different situation where, you know, we're reducing costs, OpEx across the board, and that's offsetting most of it. It's also true that inflation is not as high as we were worried about. And I'll go back to the earlier point, if I'm successful on the procurement side, then, you know, we will fully offset, and more so, well, you know, our raw materials cost, for sure.
The funny thing is, inflation is an overall number, but it, when you think about it from a business perspective, my cost of plastics is here, and it needs to be here, not the other way around. So inflation is a general average, right?
Yep. Yep.
We have specific opportunities to actually lower our costs.
Understood. And just given where price of oil is, how are we thinking about inflation dynamics for 2024? Is that still within, within the normal range of expectations, if you will?
It's mitigated, for sure. Yes, it's lower than-
We said during Analyst Day three-five. I would say we're trending on the low end of that.
For sure, yes.
Does that address your question?
It does.
Okay.
It does. That's, that's helpful. And, and when you think about 2024, what are the plus and minuses that we should be thinking about, or variables?
With respect to?
Top line and margins.
Well, the introduction of Savanna is a big driver, and new targeted opportunities on the Triage side, I would say is another.
Severity and timing of the respiratory season would be the other.
Mm-hmm. Gotcha.
Yeah, I would love to be able to say that our margins are not as good as they are because we placed too many Savannas. That would be good. I, I'll be happy to explain that.
This Savanna, Doug, like how... I know you have a placement number. It seems because it's easier to use, and I think you're targeting smaller syndromic panels. I think there's been some issues in that market that your peer in that market has used, like, very large panels, and that might be a pair of issues. So it looks like there's a very strong use case for Savanna.
I think there's a use case for both. On inpatients, it does make sense potentially to run a panel that has everything that possibly could be related to the syndrome. You know, but on the average outpatient situation, you don't really need to run more than four respiratory targets. You don't need to run more than four STI targets, but you certainly need to do more than just chlamydia and gonorrhea. All right? So we're doing those two, plus Trichomonas vaginalis and Mycoplasma genitalium. So those four constitute a super high percentage of the STI infections in the developed world.
Gotcha. And, Joe, on the margin front here, for next year, so inflation is tracking at the lower end. Any sensitivities around FX? Anything else we should be thinking about, which would, you know, impact margins?
Yeah, I think it's the same items we just mentioned before, Vijay. It's the timing and slope of the Savanna launch. It's the timing of the synergy achievement. It's again the timing and severity of that respiratory season.
Yep.
I think those are the big movers. You know, we will have a much more fulsome view of that in January, early February, of all those areas.
When you say timing and slope of Savanna launch, is that, you know, if, if we did have, like, a year in approval and a Jan launch, in time for respiratory season, I'm assuming that would be a good guy?
That would be a little bit dilutive at the moment until we get to the automated line, because you're gonna have the two manual lines, and the cartridges are too expensive.
Gotcha. Gotcha. And, Doug, when I look at the stock, it's the valuation here, you know, looks very, very compelling. What do you think the Street is missing on the story? Because at a high level, you still think that 6+ top line, that's a fair place to be in. You still expect margin expansion. Your Analyst Day targets, the 27%-29% still seems intact. What do you think the Street is missing?
... I don't know if it's necessarily missing anything. I would obviously believe we're undervalued. When you look at our own internal forecasts, if we achieve those, we're obviously not getting any credit yet for Savanna because we haven't launched it, right? It is true that the combined business is slower growing and not as profitable. So we're not exactly that growth company that we've been for the last 15 years, right? We're in an integration phase, and... But we're also in a phase where we know what to do, and I see dramatic improvement in the way we run the business. If I'm an investor, it would be hard for you to have visibility to that.
It would be easier for you to see it when you see it, right? And so I would love, a couple of quarters from now, to be able to come in and explain that's why this is happening, and that's why we're able to deliver all this. So we've got a—I would say we've got probably a solid 18 months to get to where we wanna be, and we're on that track. And as we achieve certain milestones over time, you know, maybe the street will recognize that.
Sorry, the last few seconds, what are those milestones we should be looking for?
Well, the launch of new products. You know, there's a couple of big ones. You know, high-sensitivity troponin is obviously one. Some of the other programs that we're running with our existing product line, I would say regulatory clearances, et cetera.
Fantastic. With that, we're out of time. Doug and Joe, thank you so much for spending the time with us this morning.